Top Cloud Great Hotel Suzhou

... bus and we took an hour and a half bus ride to Suzhou. Most of us in the group had never heard of Suzhou, but it has been around for a while. In fact, it was founded over 2500 years ago! Marco Polo visited here and called it the Venice of the East. The Grand Canal, which at over 1100 miles is the longest canal in the world, runs past Suzhou and connects to the moat around the old city of Suzhou. Suzhou is considered a small city, since it ...

... to buy. As we pedal along we see the local seamstress sitting at a table in front of her shop working away on her latest project. Next to her shop is the local water-well. Several people are gathered around drawing water for their gardens, or scrubbing their clothes in large pails of soapy water. A little farther along we are careful to dodge the chickens running across our path as we pass an old man who is often ...

... right by your shoulder!<br><br>Suzhou is sometimes called the Venice of the East apparently. Certainly the City centre is surrounded by the Grand Canal which goes all the way to Beijing, And there are plenty smaller canals criss-crossing the city but many of them peter out as they have been filled in or built over during a wave of Communist reconstruction. I believe moves are afoot to resurrect them. But the number of scooters certainly ...

... BC school. Probably 85% are from China and the rest are from Korea and Taiwan. This is the second year of operation for the BC school. 95% of the students (Chinese school and BC school) live on campus during the week and then go home on weekends. Tuition for the Chinese students is 2000RMB for the year (about $300CAN). Tuition for the BC students is 80000RMB for the year (about $12000CAN). The goal of all of the BC students, and the reason they come ...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!! I'm dressing up *s * pir*te / cr*cked out gypsy loh*n, it's pretty legend*ry. Tonight were going to Pulp Fiction, who *re ridiculously nice *nd giving free beer to everyone who is dressed up. It should get f*irly rowdy. App*rently none of the chinese dress up so it's b*sic*lly drunk exp*ts flooding b*r street cre*ting *ll sorts of shen*n****ns. <br>H*ve *n *wesome h*lloween!!! <br>-B

... Steve to catch his train, so he headed off to the station and Rosie and I headed to the Shamrock. We had dinner and drinks and I played pool with a random hot guy. I won, so we called it a night. Tuesday, April 29 I got up around 7:30 and got breakfast (baozi again) and headed for the train station to catch my 9:30 train to Shanghai. The train was a bit late, but it was only about an hour ride, so it was no big deal.

... luggage, it is quite easy to just roll it down. (I've got a backpack, though.) You clear the drab high rises of Shanghai in a few minutes and are quickly passing through farmlands. Traditional two-story homes sit at the front of a parcel of land which is thoroughly planted with food. Homes tend to cluster around sources of water; larger fields lie beyond. Occasionally, you will see more modern (that is, more Western-looking) housing developments ...

... a bowl of 3 Yuan noodles for around 15 Yuan. Why pay that when just out the front and down Dongbei Jie a few steps away is a little Muslim Noodle House who will try to charge 7 Yuan for a bowl of Lanzhou Noodles (Northern Noodles) but I got them down to the normal 4 Yuan after showing them my Gansu ID Card from my school there. <br> <br>Suzhou.....expensive canals ...

... for 5 hours, I settled in the most expensive place I've stayed in, yet. I think, that had I known the language, or more people could speak English, I would have find a cheaper place to stay much earlier. Suzhou is famous for its zen gardens, of which I visited 2. I really like this kind of gardens. They are not blossoming gardens, but gardens ...

... complain that their pupils learn from books but not how to think for themselves. They're not encouraged to as this may lead to subversive behaviour. They work so hard but is there anything new or creative going on? Most of what you buy here is a cheap copy of something invented somewhere else (talking of copies, got some great DVDs, less than 50p each!). The government propaganda constantly enforces that they are the best at everything, only time ...